Kinship influences sperm whale social organization within, but generally not among, social units

Royal Society Open Science
Christine M KonradHal Whitehead

Abstract

Sperm whales have a multi-level social structure based upon long-term, cooperative social units. What role kinship plays in structuring this society is poorly understood. We combined extensive association data (518 days, during 2005-2016) and genetic data (18 microsatellites and 346 bp mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region sequences) for 65 individuals from 12 social units from the Eastern Caribbean to examine patterns of kinship and social behaviour. Social units were clearly matrilineally based, evidenced by greater relatedness within social units (mean r = 0.14) than between them (mean r = 0.00) and uniform mtDNA haplotypes within social units. Additionally, most individuals (82.5%) had a first-degree relative in their social unit, while we found no first-degree relatives between social units. Generally and within social units, individuals associated more with their closer relatives (matrix correlations: 0.18-0.25). However, excepting a highly related pair of social units that merged over the study period, associations between social units were not correlated with kinship (p > 0.1). These results are the first to robustly demonstrate kinship's contribution to social unit composition and association preferences, though the...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jul 16, 2019·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Luke RendellJanet Mann
May 22, 2019·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Marine BussonChristophe Guinet
Jul 12, 2020·Scientific Reports·Greg O'Corry-CroweTatiana Ferrer
Oct 29, 2020·The Journal of Animal Ecology·Robin E MorrisonWinnie Eckardt
Dec 29, 2020·PloS One·Hayao KobayashiMasao Amano
Sep 9, 2020·The Journal of Animal Ecology·Maurício CantorDamien R Farine
Jun 19, 2021·Ecology and Evolution·Alexandru M DraghiciSimon J Bonner

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
biopsy
PCR
electrophoresis
PCRs
genotyping

Software Mentioned

R
R script
ervus
ML
olony
R package related
R elate
SOCPROG2

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